408. Are our phones killing intimacy?
The Psychology of your 20s
iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 20 April 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
It’s not a hot take to say that most of us are incredibly addicted to our phones. But when our usage bleeds into full-blown ‘technoference’ - technology interference - there can be significant, harmful consequences. In this episode, we explore how phones can harm our friendships and romantic relationships, including:
• How phones are replacing in-person interaction
• Why we can't help but be addicted
• The impact of 'phone snubbing' on our loved ones
• How phones are killing our sex lives
• The ways we can break our habits and find our way back to intimacy
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Our favourite sources from this episode:
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jan/31/age-of-intimacy-famine-interact-with-phones-rather-than-loved-ones
www.ericpickersgill.com/Removed
https://www.sellcell.com/blog/phone-addiction-statistics-watch-out-your-phone-addiction-is-making-your-dating-sex-life-toxic/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. |
| 0:09.6 | Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spike and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. |
| 0:29.4 | Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you |
| 0:35.7 | here back for another episode. Can I tell you guys a story |
| 0:39.5 | to start this episode off? The story that inspired me to do this episode. So the other day, |
| 0:46.4 | I was at this bathhouse, like, spa thing when I was back in Australia for a week. This spa is, |
| 0:52.9 | like, our go-to place. Like, when I lived there, I used to go there probably once a week. This spa is like our go to place. Like when I lived |
| 0:56.0 | there, I used to go there probably once a week. It has this like huge pool, this like soak thing, |
| 1:01.5 | this like cold plunge sauna, all the good stuff. And whilst we were there, there was this |
| 1:06.4 | group of three friends and all of them were on their phones. And I mean they were on their phones in the |
| 1:12.5 | soap pool. They were on their phones like in the stauner at one stage for like two or three |
| 1:16.6 | minutes, like sitting around in the quiet spaces, literally like cold plunging all in their |
| 1:21.6 | phones, not talking, not listening to each other. And I'm going to be honest, I tried very hard not to judge them. |
| 1:30.6 | And I tried very hard to kind of understand maybe why they were doing it, like come up with an |
| 1:34.8 | explanation. But it really stuck with me. It really made me see like perhaps very distinctly |
| 1:40.9 | and clearly for the first time, the intimacy pandemic we are in that has been |
| 1:46.1 | created by our phones. And I don't mean the fact that our phones are making us lonely. |
| 1:51.7 | I feel like that's been explored a lot. I don't mean the fact that our phones are addictive or that |
| 1:55.9 | our screen times are too high. I feel like, sure, that's a part of this. But what really struck me was that |
| 2:01.7 | even when these people were able to find a time that worked for all of them, they were able to |
| 2:06.9 | make plans for an in-person hangout. They paid their $45. They cleared their schedules. |
| 2:13.8 | They were face-to-face. Like, they'd be all of of the odds overcame all of the difficulties of |
... |
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